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Stamped From the Beginning

the Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Oct 21, 2017peachmcd rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
I cannot recommend this book highly enough, and am so grateful to this author for the work represented within its covers. I don't read non-fiction easily, and this book covers very difficult territory in an accessible way. It's very hard to know these things, but essential to the project of healing our nation's bloody and horrific past. Most useful, for me, was the way the author traced THREE strands of thought - segregationist-racist, assimilationist-racist, and anti-racist - from the middle ages forward. It helped me, as a person raised 'white', to understand how to think about people of color who hold what seem to me to be very racist opinions, or who do what appear to me to be completely unhelpful things. I am not the one to assess or to rebuke/correct these folks, but I do want to understand. This book, by identifying, describing, and contextualizing assimilationist-racism and 'uplift suasion' as strategies embraced by people of every sort, enables me to continue working on becoming ever more anti-racist without being distracted or side-tracked. Racism continues to waste the humanity, intelligence, talent, and potential of large portions of our nation's population. It does so violently and inexcusably. This book offers real assistance to the project of ending this violent, inexcusable waste.